:: Angela's Dish - Walk Into The Sky

Angela's Dish

When Angela's Dish debuted with their self titled EP, it didn’t exactly take the world by storm, but it did manage to catch the ears of enough to warrant a little attention. But within a year, Angela's Dish were starting to make waves, with their follow-up EP ‘Lie Die’ earning plenty of glowing praise from the music press upon its release in 2005, and with tours alongside acts such as Gyroscope, Something With Numbers, After The Fall, The Butterfly Effect, Jimmy Eat World, 30 Seconds To Mars and Anberlin attracting plenty of gig goers to their cause. From here, the band couldn’t seem to set a foot wrong, with their next couple of EP’s (2006’s ‘My Body Is An Ashtray’ and 2007’s ‘Soft November’) only elevating them towards that next level. But despite everyone’s high expectations, the group’s debut full-length effort ‘War On Time’ (2008) failed to harness the magic that was so clearly evident in their EP release. It’s been two years since the release of their debut full-length, but after lengthy bouts of touring and some time off to write some new material, the four piece act are back with their sophomore effort ‘Walk Into The Sky’. And in short - the band are back in form!

The opening track ‘Redemption’ is quick to let everyone know they are back in a major way, with a sound that combines the early innocence and tenderness heard within the band’s earlier material combined with a maturity that was previous unheard of in terms of musical structure. The dual harmonies of the brothers have taken on a central role within the group, but not at the cost of the strong rock/alternative instrumentation that’s always been a defining strength within the band’s musical backbone. From here, tracks such as the slow burning ‘You Want Me To Give Up’, the uplifting ‘Crash’, ‘More Alien’, ‘Rapture’, ‘Parachute’ and ‘See You In Disneyland’ sees the band combining elements of their punk and alternative rock past with a newfound sense of maturity in a way that proves just how far Angela's Dish’s song writing has come along in the last couple of years. But there’s more to this album than a one dimensional sound, with tracks such as ‘Part Of Me’, the semi-acoustic ‘The Valley (Like You Said I Would)’, the laid back simplicity of ‘Sorry Lately’ and the gentle and soothing closer ‘Have You Around’ showcasing the band’s willingness to broaden their sound with some level of experimentation, without losing anything in the process. Some may have written off Angela's Dish as a band with some early potential who couldn’t quite deliver with their debut effort. But to do so would be a serious mistake, because with the release of ‘Walk Into The Sky’, the Central Coast band has finally delivered on that initial promise, and then some.